TIC: A couple years ago the Verizon CEO said they don't care about land lines anymore. Perhaps it could be that they are essentially an unregulated monopoly when it comes to cell service where we live. Profit... and how might they make more money, perhaps do away with the POTS lines.
TAC or FCC TECHNOLOGICAL ADVISORY COUNCIL: and get a bunch of other business people with conflicts of interest http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1025/DOC-302376A1.txt who will profit from increased business to tell the govt what is best for them.
TOE: We will hear about this one later. Does anyone remember how Verizon promised to put fiber every where in exchange for being able to get back into the long distance business? And how the delivery of that so called promise doesn't exist, at least not in our county, or any of the surrounding counties. A phase out will be announced with some promises about how great cell and broadband will be, and we will probably just see higher monthly bills...

We lost power for almost two weeks after Hurricane Isabel and cell service was mostly down, cable TV was down and the POTS line worked intermittently. My brother bought a cheap generator and we could use our dialup service while the landline worked. Although only one very old computer and the laptop could take the non standard voltages of our cheap generator... It was about 3 weeks without cabletv, which also is our current ISP. A couple of months ago I tried to call 911 with our cell phone when I saw (likely a drunk driver) a truck driving slowly down a dark road with no lights, and guess what 911 didn't work! My parents are elderly and I have argued with my father for a couple of years now not to get rid of the land line because it is more reliable in an emergency. This is all I need, now he will get rid of the land line and need it for an emergency call...